Feedback on Those Sweet (and Bitter)Skills --Act 2

[yayswords]

Stone? Paralysis, not petrification

But anyway, isn't it harsh enough that your turn is delayed like hell? If you wanna go with "if you wait really long you should lose buff ticks", I wanna go with "if you wait really short you shouldn't lose buff ticks", and like I said... don't wanna open that can of worms. Loren 2 combat system will fix it all.

Anyway, I wanna say some things about Rowinda. I know you're not gonna change her right now, but I wanna put it out there. When I first saw her I thought whoa, Life Channel is gonna be the most OP skill in the game. I even posted that. Now I think it's Vigorous Sonata, but anyway... well, that spell was gonna pwn under the condition that Rowinda stacked crazy health. Sure she did, but in this party, so did everyone else, so in the end it's a net total of 45% healing (30% lost to heal 75%) - worse than druid/ranger heal. And let me add that the health stacking feels every bit needed, at least for Yeldin, so it's not like my weird playstyle messed up Rowinda.

Still, that's like her only utility on a boss fight. The rest is damage damage damage. Madness doesn't work on bosses. Nuking bosses is difficult, they tend to have high magic and resistances. My druid spends turn after turn healing, and more than half my ranger's turns are used to heal as well. I would need ridiculously high magic on my druid for a nuke to be a better choice than a heal. But I can live with that, it's not like I never use her nukes, just not so much on boss fights. Mostly it's the occasional Earth Spike to set up burst. Rowinda on the other hand only has her crippled nukes. She definitely felt like the worst party member vs. Yeldin. I might even have done it as 5, but I suppose she at least soaked some damage.

That's not to say Riley felt like my MVP either, but Slumber working 100% on bosses is pretty great, and Energize can still speed people up. Plus if there was the threat of big physical attacks I'd probably be up in arms about his Ghost Form. Still, nukes don't have much use against bosses, so those that rely on them just suck there. And let's not forget that when they are useful, it's probably gonna be to burn down one target... and the best single target nukes belong to druids.

Side note: I tried unequipping weapons on Chalassa, and while I obviously don't have all skills, it seems only Flurry of Blows uses her melee weapons, everything else her bow. Seems odd. I get that for design purposes you might wanna use the ranged weapon even for skills that are conceptually melee attacks, but why not FoB then?

[fabulaparva]

^My tactic has actually been (after the very first playthrough where I used her in the final fight) to use Rowinda in the preliminary fight with Yeldin and his cronies. She can do considerable damage with her row-spells with attribute points put in Will and Magic and not Constitution. I haven't really played with her Life Channel.

For the "actual Yeldin-fight" I switched Rowinda and Chalassa to Riley and Jariel, who came in completely charged-up. Then I worked Boss Yeldin's HPs down just above whateverlevel the others don't heal him on...somewhere between 200 and 300 HP... I sped up as many fighters as possible with Eagle's Grace and Energize and slowed all the duplicate Yeldins down with Jariel's Static Lullaby, then hit Vigorous Sonata... continuing with Riley's Slumber on Yeldin, Airnukes from my druid, who was enhanced with Scent of the Stars, Double Attack from my hunter who was Hiding in Shadows (around 90HP actual damage, woot) and Mighty Blow from Krimm cleaned that bastard out without having to kill any of the other Yeldins... I only weakened them so they were kept busy.

Riley's Slumber against bosses rules. No, he won't do a lot of dmg, but he will make them weak to the damage the others can inflict.


EDIT: And yes, I am liberal with consumables. Now where's that Queen/King of Consumables achievement?

[jack1974]

Side note: I tried unequipping weapons on Chalassa, and while I obviously don't have all skills, it seems only Flurry of Blows uses her melee weapons, everything else her bow. Seems odd. I get that for design purposes you might wanna use the ranged weapon even for skills that are conceptually melee attacks, but why not FoB then?

Yes indeed was a mistake, fixed it.
Regarding Rowinda and/or bosses, I am going to have some different bosses too. Yeldin being a mage obviously had high Magic, but I also plan to have other bosses not so magic resistant, especially with the new AI I think I could do some interesting stuff

[yayswords]

She can do considerable damage with her row-spells with attribute points put in Will and Magic and not Constitution.

I don't think there is much bang for the buck to be had increasing other stats than constitution, aside from 15-20 will depending on character (untouched for Krimm). You could probably motivate raising certain stats to 20, and I will once I have unlocked the bonus HP trait for each character. But beyond that? +2.5 magic per level? Not very exciting when you look at how much you can get from gear. Meanwhile, more health increases the effectiveness of healing spells (though not potions h3h3), and I'm pretty sure it pays off more than improving your defenses so you take less damage to begin with.

Just wait for my act 3 shopping. With Jariel around I don't need to look for SPR, so I can go mad +magic +speed for my mages, while still sporting over 400 health :D

It's cool that we keep winning with diametrically opposed playstyles. But I want an achievement too, for refusing to use taverns or buy consumables.

[yayswords]

Before I make a megapost: The base attack/magic/defense mentioned in the traits, does that mean the "white/naked" value in the character sheet, or does it mean the green one but it's additive with buffs?

[jack1974]

Yes is the white one (at least it should be otherwise is a bug!).
edit: nope, is the total so the green one

[fabulaparva]

+2.5 magic per level? Not very exciting when you look at how much you can get from gear. Meanwhile, more health increases the effectiveness of healing spells (though not potions h3h3), and I'm pretty sure it pays off more than improving your defenses so you take less damage to begin with.

Ah, but there's one big difference right there. I don't do the roulette and I'm not putting as much thought in optimizing my gear. I've seen +5SP regen gear in the shops in Act 2 once and it cost too much to buy it .. on the next visit it was gone. Did I cry over the missed chance? Nah, no time. I'm just waiting for you to find some +10 regen items in Shacklesplit. Then, I'll cry.

It's cool that we keep winning with diametrically opposed playstyles. But I want an achievement too, for refusing to use taverns or buy consumables.

And yes, it's really cool that the characters can be customized for totally different styles of fighting without there being only one way to win the battles.

[yayswords]

I will care a lot less for regen with Jariel around, and as you've noticed it's freaking expensive, so if I see a 10 SPR item I will probably just reroll. I don't buy every piece of SPR I can get. I've got screenshots of 6 SPR rings (two different occasions) that I rerolled because I wanted big +magic

I want to talk about the warrior front row, namely Krimm, Vaelis and a ranger twin. And, uncharacteristic of me, mostly if not only to talk about how awesome it is. Still, not because they are three gods made flesh owning at every possible aspect of ownage.

Ranger first. It lacks that certain oomph of combat prowess. Wide Slash is weak for a row nuke. Sweeping Strike hits hard but requires stagger. Cripple doesn't hit hard enough to be a bread and butter attack, though the debuff is decent. I haven't taken Cross Cut; Sweeping Strike is 2h only and CC doesn't work on bosses, so it might be like the last skill I would pick. Strike Through is rather awesome though. My ranger usually does enough damage to stagger the back row target with it. Still, it's not a bladestorm juggernaut, but it has Guard and most importantly, it has the best heal. I haven't fully experimented with making my ranger a tank since I find it a little too unreliable to get aggro, but I'm probably picking up the relevant skills next.

Now Krimm. She definitely is a bladestorm juggernaut. She can to some extent manage her own health, mana and stagger. The downside is that taking all these mini-actions (there's Protect too) can quickly make Rally wear off her before she actually gets to attack. Anyway, she has devastating row nukes and she's not easily shut down. Her single target abilities aren't awesome, I'm sure I will take Mighty Blow sooner or later but I'm pretty certain it won't dethrone Vaelis as the selective painbringer. Furthermore, she can't hit the back row at all. She can't even equip a bow, and that's more of a drawback than you might think. Kick is one solution to this - I got Lorin to the front row with two kicks. Usually she can't hit the target herself before it swaps back though. I think you (fabulaparva) mentioned it getting changed but I haven't noticed anything, I think it's still a little OP, because you can so easily slow a boss with it (ditto Slumber). I will probably try Pull too later. Either way, she makes a mess of a 3 man front row.

Lastly Vaelis, I used to find him a little meh in act 2, but now I know how to own with him, or rather who to own with him. Vaelis has absolutely no row nukes. Furthermore, his utility is limited to Rally. This is still a pretty good skill, especially if you can time it so that you take someone's paralysis from 2 to 1, so they lose it on their turn rather than having to defend. Obviously +30% attack is awesome too. Leap Attack is devastating if you can get the stagger off (Strike Through). Even if the target is guarded! It's a 250% attack with 6 delay - same as a normal melee attack. Hurts like hell to guard against that. Vaelis is the king of single target damage. Study Opponent, Precision, and obviously Rally, and Throwing Axes will deal devastating damage. The bleed is just adding insult to injury when he pulls this off. You could combine it with Slumber and a shatter effect... I will probably add Dirty Tricks to the mix later as well. Throwing Axes makes for the best 250% attack - no requirements (unlike Sweeping Strike) and shorter delay/cost than Mighty Blow.

So yeah it's a pretty damn good front row, without anyone being the god of everything.

[fabulaparva]

I have the impression that Krimm's Kick used to have shorter delay - I think the required time was 08, now it's 12. (Not sure if the SP cost went up as well, but that never was an issue.) It doesn't seem that much, but I was able to do more Kicks during my first playthrough. It was fun to Kick an enemy to the back, slowing them down and then either to Kick the backrow enemy back so that both of them were weakened and slowed or I'd Kick two enemies to the front and before they'd move back (with the help of Riley's Slumber on the appropriate guy), I'd have hit Wreak Havoc or Explosives thrown by my Hunter on those guys who started in the back row. Squish!

Mighty Blow is a new I-love-eeet skill for me as it can be used on Bosses (since Finishing Blow's usefulness is now restricted)

[yayswords]

Yeah, you're probably right about the delay. Not quite the nerf I thought it needed though